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Why no female “bromance” word?

Retracted sticker originally announced on Valentines day by The Access Fund (a rock climbing advocacy group) , showing two male climbers high-fiving. Large text says “I LOVE YOU MAN” while smaller italicized text says (Platonically of course). The sticker was retracted after the queer climbers’ group HomoClimbtastic pointed out that it was more than a little homophobic.

My response is kind of long, and would be a late addition to that thread, so I thought I’d just put my fuller reply here:

Basically, I don’t think there are neologisms for female platonic friendship the way there are for male friendship because there is no urgent need to specify “no homo” for female friendships. The word “bromance” exists to specify “we’re not gay.”

nonsexual female friendships are “allowed” to be intimate without being perceived as homosexual.

female homosexuality is less damaging to a “feminine” reputation than male homosexuality is to a “masculine” reputation.

it is assumed that women can have a few homosexual experiences and still be straight, while men are generally assumed to “really” be gay, if they have any homosexual experiences at all.

As a hetero cis woman, I can say I’m ‘going out with a girlfriend’ and no one wonders what I mean. They know I mean girl [space] friend. Because I’m both assumed and known to be straight. And even if it was sexual, the reaction would be somewhere between “meh” and approval in most places. No one would accuse me of faking my heterosexuality for all time. No one will take a single instance of questionability as proof that I’m *actually* gay. Even if it was definitely sexual, I don’t lose my “woman” card.

Animated image of a primly dressed woman looking suspiciously out of the corner of her eyes.

But our culture currently has kind of a serious problem with male emotional intimacy. If two men are intimate, there’s the open question of what form that intimacy takes. And one of the possible forms gets serious side-eye.

As pioneering gay historian (gay and a historian, also a historian of teh ghey) George Chauncey shows in his excellent book Gay New York, prior to the social emergence of an exclusive homosexual identity (before “being gay” was “a thing”), affection between men was viewed quite differently.

Chauncey’s particular book limits its scope to New York City in the pre-depression 20th century, but there are many surviving or even famous examples of male affection that weren’t seen as gay at the times of authorship, when homosexuality carried a death penalty. Shakespeare’s incredibly famous sonnet “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day” was written for a male friend. (or maybe lover but no one would dare propose that publicly, so there was no need to publicly declare “no homo.”) Late 19th and early 20th century male authors wrote passionately affectionate letters to one another. In other cultures with strict prohibitions on homosexuality even to very recent times, men still hold hands.

George W. Bush walking hand in hand with Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, 2005. Homosexuality is still punishable in Saudi Arabia by imprisonment, corporal, and even capital punishment.

In our modern palette of western masculinity, however, homosexuality is openly recognized. Because it’s an option, but not an option many men are comfortable being mistaken for, there is a need to specify against it.

Modern masculinity is struggling with a lot of negative definitions… not womanly, not faggoty, not.. un-manly-y. It is, in a lot of ways, extremely precarious. (In a way that is shitty. Thanks, patriarchy!) One instance of potential homosexuality is far more damaging to a masculine reputation than one such instance for a woman. Male homosexuality is seen as a step down, toward a womanly position, which is lesser. (Female homosexuality, and more masculine gender presentation on women aka tomboys, is more tolerated because it’s seen as aspirational towards the masculine, which is a better.)

So men specify that it’s a “bromance” as a way of simultaneously joking about and defusing the possible sexual implications of two men hanging out together while also clearly specifying that it is NOT sexual.

Female friendships don’t have that term, because they don’t need that term, because there’s no perceived threat.

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12 thoughts on “Why no female “bromance” word?”

And I love that you brought up that point about male homosexuality being perceived as a step towards the feminine, vs. tomboy women are tolerated because it’s considered a step toward the masculine. I think that’s a really central part of homophobic thought.

And yes, it is definitely about gay sex being seen as a step towards being feminine. This becomes even more obvious when you consider that in some cultures/subcultures only the “penetrated” man is seen as gay, while the “penetrating” man retains his straight card.

All homophobia really has its roots in sexism, and if we want to eliminate homophobia we need to focus on eliminating sexism and misogyny. I think it would also help if bisexuality for men was more accepted.

I always appreciated the lingering handshakes of Moroccan men when they met in the medina. Such warmth.

It’s an interesting observation about the word “bromance” and its purpose. I think there are alternatives to “girlfriend” perhaps emerging though; homegirl, bestie, bff, roomie, “going out with “the girls”… I also think “crush” can be used in a way that is both jokingly and “ok” for the speaker to be used for any gender. As in, “I have a man crush on X” or ” I’ll admit I’m crushing on Y a little”.

I think it’s also worth noting that this “no homo” obsession seems to be on the decline, especially among younger people, as homophobia declines. For example, in the UK, straight teenage boys are becoming more comfortable being cuddly and saying they love one another, as explored in this Salon article: http://www.salon.com/2011/10/05/straight_male_friendship_now_with_more_cuddling/. I also see this in my own life. I have a number of straight male friends who are very comfortable saying “I love you” and cuddling with each other, and also with their queer friends, like myself.

I do actually thing that “bromance” is going to be, in a very short period of time, a linguistic artifact of a very particular social era. From a handful of years ago, till a handful of years in the future, when queer identities are making huge strides into mainstream *awareness* just a little faster than they’re making strides towards acceptance and love.

And you can definitely already see it changing. In my life, the climbing community might unwittingly put out a “no homo” sticker, but it also retracted it with an apology less than a day after it was pointed out. Guys might jokingly call man cuddles “practicing for Everest” (it has a purpose! no really!), but they also are really really unafraid to touch each other. And that is in a hyper-masculine environment.

I think men of our generation are less afraid to be affectionate to each other than men of our fathers’ generation, and are actively working towards defining a masculinity that’s not simply “not what girls do.” It’s pretty exciting.

Yeah, I don’t really get what the problem with no homo is. It’s just a way of emphasizing that there relationship is about mutual respect and not sexual/romantic feelings.

I think male and female friendships are different in some ways and that’s why there’s no female equivalent. I think for girls there can be a kind of nurturing side to a friendship, at least with a close friendship, and you can talk about your feelings more. For a guy, I think he’d sooner go to his girlfriend for that kind of stuff. While friendships between guys are more about supporting each other in like ‘manly’ things for lack of a better word. I know this barely makes sense but I can’t really describe it right.

The problem with “no homo” is this: why is it so important to emphasize that a relationship isn’t homosexual? If we were comfortable with all sexualities, then it wouldn’t matter so much whether a friendship between men has a homosexual aspect or not.

It may be so that female friendships have more of a nurturing side, but why is that? Why do women feel freer to share their feelings with one another? To me, the answer is clear: men are discouraged from sharing their innermost feelings. Sharing feelings, for men, means vulnerability and weakness. And that seems to me terribly unfair.

Well I think sharing feelings full stop means vulnerability, at least to a small degree. That’s not really fair or unfair, it’s just a fact, that’s what vulnerability means. I think men are not inclined to want to share those kinds of feelings, especially not with other men. Why I’m not sure, but I know I definitely wouldn’t feel right if my boyfriend was getting all intimate like that with another guy.

But why aren’t they inclined to be vulnerable with one another? To me it seems sad that men are discouraged from opening themselves up that way with male friends. Maybe if we communicated different messages about friendship, men would be able to share their feelings in more constructive ways.